


Routines

by DetectiveGraham (grahamswounds)



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, M/M, Married Couple, PTSD Frederick, The sassfest starts early in wolf trap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-29
Updated: 2015-10-29
Packaged: 2018-04-28 18:03:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5100413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grahamswounds/pseuds/DetectiveGraham
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Frederick Chilton and Will Graham have been shacked up together for long enough that romance oftentimes came in the form of the simplistic and everyday things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Routines

**Author's Note:**

> While this is admittedly short, I may turn this into a multi-chapter if anyone is intrigued by a Post-Europe, Pre/Peri-Red Dragon Chillywilly AU.

Sleep was the last thing Frederick Chilton found solace in since his unfortunate brush with death. It wooed him, certainly. Sang siren songs full of false promises against his ears, whispering sweet nothings as it left sweet kisses along his drooping lids. It entranced him, pulled him hesitantly along only to squeeze his hand so tightly bones crushed beneath its grip. Sleep had no mercy or sympathy, especially not tonight.

Frederick was being forced to hold a cornucopia of his insides set into the open air. The feeling of organs pooling around his palms, spilling out over his abdomen in a grotesque bouquet was unsettling, almost too real. The echoing voice of his abductor was prattling on and on as his tongue lolled out of his head. The pain was searing, burning his nerves as his heart fluttered. Frederick moaned in agony. His vision was hazy, yes, but he understood one thing with perfect clarity.

 

This had happened before. Too many times before.  
Frederick clamored with desperate, shaking fingers to toss aside the sheets that had entangled themselves around his legs. He glanced to the alarm clock situated on the nightstand. 3:30 AM. Too early to be awake, too late to go back to sleep if he had planned to go to work on time. 

Work. Frederick groaned softly, pushing up with a grunt so his bare feet slid off the bed and hit soft carpet. His face settled into his hands. "Christ..." He hissed under his breath, stooping over himself and refusing to get up. He would have to start getting ready soon, carefully crafting a facade for himself that made him appear less disgusting than he felt he looked. The way his features drooped on one side, the vein-riddled divot that took up an unfortunately large portion of his face. It all repulsed him - how ugly he had become. To reflect his inner self, he supposed. 

A body stirred beside him, and a soft sound suggested they were just barely starting to wake. Frederick found himself smiling against his palms. After a minute, a voice came, muffled from underneath a pillow.

"Is it after 2 for once?" It asked, exasperated and drawn out with weariness.

Frederick chuckled quietly to himself. "Yes, Will," He assured his partner, "But unfortunately for the both of us it isn't by much."

It was Will's turn to groan, and he rolled over and pressed himself up on one elbow. Dark curls hung limply against his face, shrouding his eyes. Even in the dark, Will was breathtaking in his unkempt beauty. 

"Which of them was it this time?" He hummed, head propped against his hand, "Gideon or Lass?" 

"Gideon," Frederick admitted, taking in a shallow breath as he flopped back against the sheets. His head fell against the jut of Will's hip, which dug harshly into the back of his neck. "Honestly, I'm finding difficulty in distinguishing the dreams from the real thing anymore. Lord knows I shouldn't - with my experience as a doctor."

Will scoffed. "With your experience as a victim, it's not an entirely misplaced confusion."

Frederick pursed his lips. Will was right, of course - he often was in situations like this. It was petty to think himself higher than the more drastic symptoms of PTSD, especially after his wrongful persecution. But it still gnawed at him that after Hannibal's imprisonment and years of the quiet life with his husband, he still was subjected to the torture of reliving his suffering. Night after night, they came to him. Tearing away flesh, pulling away organs. Despite Will to hold him, he was alone in his nightmares.

"It's a confusion I've long resolved in my waking mind," Frederick huffed, sprawling his arms out across the bed. One hand brushed against Will's, and his touch lingered. "It's my damn subconscious that won't listen." 

His husband laughed softly, fingers tangling with his own. "Our subconscious is stubborn- never listens to reason, gets trapped in its own perpetual fear." Will squeezed his hand. "Bit like you that way."

Frederick's lips puckered indignantly, and he turned his head to face Will. "I'd like to think I've changed for the better. After all, I've been nothing but good to you these past two years we've been playing odd couple. Or are you going to knock me down again, remind me of my many character flaws?" 

"No, nothing like that," Will huffed. He always said the wrong thing, the wrong way, even when he wasn't meaning to be malicious. Frederick learned that well, but it still caught him off guard sometimes. "You didn't let me finish. You have a tendency to lock yourself in on your own past, convince yourself that you've been maimed with extreme prejudice. That it was righteous retribution.

"So you lie to yourself. Claim you've come to terms with it, realized it isn't your fault, but something about you still has to figure that out." 

Frederick moaned, burying his face against Will's side. He hated when Will played psychologist to him - he was right again, and the fact he knew it himself frustrated him even more. "It's too early for you to be riding me like this," he grumbled into his husband's skin. 

"I'm not riding you about it, I'm trying to help," Will replied softly, his tone much more soothing and gentle than before, "Besides, you were the one to wake us up." 

Will let his hand fall away from his partners, moving instead to card fingers into Frederick's hair. It was unruly this time of morning, ungelled and unwashed. Frederick loved to have his hair played with, when it wasn't meticulously groomed into place. It grounded him, reminded him that Will didn't mind giving him the pleasure of touch.

"Thank you," Frederick breathed, letting his eyes drift closed, "for taking me as I am." 

Will's smile was lost to the dark. 

 

"I'd be a hypocrite if I didn't." 

Frederick almost fell back asleep in the comfort of Will's reassuring touch, his lids pulled downward forcefully by the promise of blissful sleep. He was reminded of life's eternal unfairness when the alarm blared.

Both men groaned with frustration as Frederick pushed himself up, leaning over and grabbing his half-denture from where it sat on the nightstand, shoving it up into his jaw. It pushed his face back into a handsome shape, or as handsome as it could get without surgery. 

"You know, this would be easier for the two of us if you retired, Frederick," Will said as he sat up, pinching the bridge of his nose and squeezing his eyes shut as Frederick turned the light on. "The hospital doesn't need you that desperately."

"Of course they need me," Frederick huffed, "Who else would have the drive, or command the same respect I do? I've got a certain set of skills that you can't find just anywhere, Will." 

He smoothed out his shirt with both hands, his chest heaving and lips pinched. One of the dogs that bothered to be awake at this hour nosed at his crotch.

"You don't have an obligation to them," Will replied, pushing himself so that his feet dangled off the bed and pressed against carpet. "Seeing Hannibal twice a week has been taking a toll on you, it's not hard to see that. You've been earning enough for us to live comfortably for a long time, it isn't worth the power you're giving him."  
Frederick sighed, laying a shaking hand on the mutt's head. It was matted and gnarly, which was a rarity. Will always made sure they were well groomed... Christ, was this a new one? He could never keep track. "This isn't about our financial stability. I am the caretaker of the most prestigious collection of brains in the entire country, the world," His tone grew desperate, pleading. He couldn't help but feel pathetic. "This is about my reputation, which I have been working to repair since the very minute I got released from custody." 

"Reputation should be the least of your worries." 

 

"That's just it! This job, the prestige - it's the only thing I have left." 

Will's face turned to a grimace. "Then what is all this," he gestured with his head to the rest of the room, "to you?" 

Frederick's face fell. "That's not what I meant, and you know it. You know how much my career means to me." 

Will pressed his face into his hands. "Just go shower."

\---

Frederick pushed back dark locks from his face as he looked into the stream of water that fell over him. The quiet hiss of steam was something that had taken to soothing him as years passed, breaking apart the silence and monotony of early morning. It was not always that way, however. In his first few days spent shacked up with Will, he refused to go near the bathroom, fearing that blood and grime still stuck stubbornly in the drainpipe. That he would be able to smell the stench of gore and feel it sticky against his skin. He was terrified of showers, for a while. Until Will had started showering with him.

Will. His beautiful, blunt, stubborn, callous Will. There were days Frederick wondered to himself how he had managed to pair with such a specimen, and there were others where he wondered what he saw in the man in the first place. Will had warmed to him over private sessions, awkward dinners. He remembered their first fumbling. It still hurt, knowing that what they had now was the result of Will's desire for rebellion against his past. Frederick had begun as Will's filthy little rebound, a shameful roll in the sack that was a healthier substitute to drunkenness. He had to be more than that now, otherwise Will wouldn't have agreed to marry him. Right?

He must have been showering for longer than he thought, because the water sputtered and turned cold. Frederick cursed, fumbling to turn the water off before his soaked form froze. He slipped aside the curtain, huddling a plush towel tightly around himself. 

Then came the rest of the grueling morning routine. An assortment of makeups were arranged carefully on one side of the counter, alongside the various brushes it took to cover up the little eyesore sitting against his cheek. Frederick felt as though he was being petty, taking this much time to cover up the ugly truth. It wasn't as though the hospital staff was unaware of his hideous hidden face, far from it. They had taken to whispering of him behind his back, in the staff room and along the back alleyways of the hospital on smoke breaks. Most called him all manner of cruel names, regarding his humanity as something to be questioned. Frederick tried to shrug it off, of course. Employees were often cruel to their bosses, crueler than they would be to their peers. This self assurance was what kept him from firing the particularly venomous ones. 

It took precision to make his scar disappear the way he wanted it to, along with a delicate hand and an abundance of patience. Frederick had little patience and questionable precision this morning, so he settled for a less elegant, ergonomic covering. He grimaced at his reflection - it would do, for today. He would just have to tell Stacy he was loathe to visitors, and to have anyone unexpected schedule for some other afternoon.

Another half hour of preening later, he slipped out of the bathroom, slacks hanging loosely around his waist and shirt only half buttoned. It took another fifteen minutes to pick out a jacket and tie from the hall closet. They would have to work as a distraction from his mediocre makeup job.

Frederick made his way downstairs, slinking into the kitchen and being taunted by the smell of bacon. Will always made it for himself in the mornings, though it was more a treat for the dogs than it was breakfast. He didn't want to know how much they were spending a month on canine amenities. 

"Mind pouring me a cup of coffee?" Frederick asked, collar popped as he fumbled with his tie. 

"You know, you always forget the 'please' at the end," Will teased, sliding a fresh-brewed cup of joe across the counter, "You'd think that you'd be the one of us with manners, seeing as I'm the backwoods hick." 

"I never called you a hick, I called you an outdoorsman," Frederick replied defensively, putting a hand out to stop the mug from going any further and clattering to the floor. It left a stinging red mark on his palm. "Slide me the sugar and cream, would you?" 

Will gave him a look, quirking a brow.

"Please?" 

His husband clucked his tongue scoldingly, sliding them down along the counter in succession. "To think, the illustrious Doctor Chilton can't manage simple etiquette. There's a scandalous headline for Lounds." 

Frederick rolled his eyes, scooping a sinful amount of sugar into his cup. "You'd think she would prefer a headline with your name in it. I could give her a full spread on your little quirks." 

"Good thing we both have each other trained and tongue-tied then." 

Frederick laughed at that. "Did you make me anything? Preferably something I can eat this time," Frederick hummed, slipping on his tie pin before taking a sip of his coffee. He grimaced - too sweet. 

"Breakfast scramble's on the table," Will answered as he dropped strips of bacon into the gaping maws of various hungry mutts. "Made sure to leave the egg and bacon out of your portion. And for the record, the last time I left it in it wasn't intentional." 

"Oh, and the time before was?" Frederick slunk into his chair, still sipping his saccharine coffee as he dug into the simple little skillet his husband had fixed for him. Will wasn't an incredible cook, but he had become more versed in vegan recipes as of late, for his sake. 

"Oh please, Frederick," Will scoffed, "If I was plotting to kill you, I doubt it would be in the form of a protein overdose."

Frederick looked at him with exasperation. "That's reassuring," he said with a full mouth, before gulping down the last of his scramble. "On that note, any plans for my demise will have to be postponed, because I'm running late. Again." 

They kissed briefly on his way out. Frederick's tongue still tasted of Will and grilled red onions when he got on the road.


End file.
